


Fiat Justitia.

by lvdym



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: "we don't give second chances" did anybody actually tell them that, also one day we'll have a chat about how sustainable having one punishment is, also the narrative voice in this is very weird and that should be a warning itself, and knew i was going to be executed, and there must be at least some vampires who believe the same, but the volturi frustrated me, especially when that punishment is death, i don't know what this is, i don't know what this is supposed to be, i feel that if i did something comparatively minor, i feel that you can afford a little creativity, i'd just do all the terrible things i could out of spite, it sort of got away from me and i think i ended up ranting, there are things that would put me off that more than execution would, ur vampires ur creatures of the night and you have someone who can torture people by looking at them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lvdym/pseuds/lvdym
Summary: The Volturi do not offer second chances.





	Fiat Justitia.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing of any description in like 18 months that I've written, so my apologies that it's rusty. I used the film dialogue mostly because the film is on Netflix, and I have no idea where my copy of New Moon is. 
> 
> The notes I wrote myself while writing this are ridiculous. This is ridiculous.
> 
> Anyway I am back in Twilight Hell because of Tumblr, particularly because of kyilliki. You should all check her out if you haven't. It's also entirely possible that my interpretations of the Volturi have been influenced by hers, not intentionally, but still, check her out. 
> 
> The narrative in this is quite odd. It felt inauthentic to me to have line breaks or to start a new chapter, but I felt something different was needed. It's just a little experimentation, along with being incredibly rusty.

Competence lined with chaos. Aro knew it was easier to seem competent but not overly so; to be seen as less was to be trusted more. He could discern secrets with a touch, lingering only to him. Trust was still important, still to be earned. He earned the trust of a golden-eyed anomaly, only to destroy it without care for the sake of amusement, for the sake of experimentation. This was a truth, a secret, that others could only guess at: he was not some benevolent being, a ruler who would give too many chances in the sake of goodness. He was an iron willed ruler, a boy in search of power, an ancient being who had only novelty left. 

This, this was a novelty. The golden-eyed ‘child’ of a golden-eyed friend, stood before him, begging. A child who would have been long a man in times past, broken and defeated and yearning for death. A boy who had found love, found an exception, only to turn it to dust in the name of doing what was right. Empty, and sad, and a mirror image of what he had caused in the man he now called brother, at the cost of a girl who had been sister. 

“I’m afraid your particular gifts are too valuable to destroy, but … if you’re unhappy with your lot, join us, we would be delighted to utilise your skills. Won’t you consider staying with us?” 

They had no reason for execution, with Isabella's death the law was still followed in spirit. He would not needlessly slaughter his subjects. And this? It was an olive branch, an attempt at something lost, an atonement. The idea of having a constant stream of other's consciousness was attractive, though, Aro would admit, not necessary. Edward's gift was easy enough to fool, only reading surface thoughts left depths undetected. It was well serving as an excuse, not even his brothers in name and venom could discern his motivation, oftentimes. Besides, Volturi was not synonymous with mercy, only mercy when it was useful, when it was weaponised. 

Edward left, and Aro sighed - a lovesick fool, willing to create a scene to force their hand, with some ham-fisted attempt at manipulating the man who'd done the same so much more artfully for millennia past and to come still. His moves were the stumbles of desperation, but let it not be said the Volturi acted without provocation. They must, after all, be just. 

  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


Hearing the approaching footsteps caused an almost smile on Aro’s lips and the accompanying heartbeat sent it to an undeniably delighted grin. Bella was alive, it seemed. These things had away of becoming more and more amusing; these were not lives. These were stories written in a candlelit darkness, juicy and illicit and immoral. Every person was a narrative, Aro had their entire stories with a touch, a whisper of skin against skin. Entire lives for his own amusement, splayed before him - all secrets, all those forgotten moments, everything. It did little for empathy. Even now, Aro struggled to correlate morality with the person’s character. There was still dissonance between action and individual. A life for his perusal, all without so much as needing to utter a word. Perhaps that is why anomalies delighted him so, he had heard the same rehashed stories since time immemorial. There was, in the end, nothing new left. 

"What a happy surprise! Bella is alive after all."

The anomaly, exception, oddity didn’t look like much - a shadow, a ghost, a whisper - but when did they ever? Of all, Aro knew best. He had seen the minds of the brilliant and the broken. He had seen genius and fool. He sighed. He was present, and passive, and acting like a caricature of himself. Subtleties became lost somewhere, somewhen. 

“Would you do me the honour?”

Aro stepped forwards, hand proffered - a mockery of offering, of sacrifice. He was driven by curiosity, with no real thought to the outcome. It didn’t matter. Edward couldn’t see her mind, it only gave way to Aro’s need to know - if he was fallible in the same way, if she were useful, if this was something new. 

He was surprised at the silence when their skin met. Edward was easy to fool; Aro had long been fluent in subterfuge. Aro had long been able to bury thoughts and consciousness he didn’t want in the open, but a natural talent for it was astounding, if a threat. He knew Isabella was impenetrable to Edward; she was equally impenetrable to him. Aro did not long for silence, it left too much room for rebellion. Unanswered questions were as far away from Aro's agenda as it were possible to be. Power in knowledge. Power in delusion. Power in deceit. 

"I wonder if... Let us see if she is immune to all our powers, shall we, Jane?"

Twelve hundred years of service had leant themselves in this endeavour, over a millennia of hero worship and gratitude, Jane was too eager to step forwards, to level her gaze at Isabella. Edward's intervention was neither expected nor surprising enough to cause a break in their ranks. The mousy haired girl simply directed her wrath to him. It was a simple enough task to incapacitate him enough to turn her attention back to Bella. 

"Remarkable. She confounds us all."

Hiding his thoughts from Edward was easy - he may not often be around other telepaths, but Aro liked control - over people, things, himself. His disappointment and delight only manifested itself behind a veneer of confusion, of careful construct, he had taken so many secrets and he would not have his own stolen. 

Edward's anger was apparent to Aro, even without any kind of empathetic gift nor long distance telepathy. He inclined his head towards Felix, in enough time for the vampire to act as Edward lunged. Perhaps his gift gave him some advantage, but Felix had been doing this Edward's life several times over. It was little issue to him to stop the potential attack, it was easy, it was second nature. 

“The law is the law. We do not give second chances.”

The words were firm with finality. This was the feeding chamber, the execution chamber, the echo chamber. Decisions were made here, law was made here, the final word was said here. Aro's smile was still friendly, so deceptively kind and gentle - it was easy to forget who he was, to forget all he'd done and the kind of power he wielded. He gave reassurances in the form of two co-rulers, but Aro had picked them with careful hand too. 

"That's not fair!" Edward interjected, with the kind of righteous indignation that came from youth, or Carlisle, or both. 

It was Caius who responded; deceptively old, washed out white monochrome. “Is it not? Is a mortal not aware of our existence because of your actions?”

“He didn’t tell me!” Bella stuttered. “I guessed! It doesn’t count! It can’t count.”

Aro tutted. He knew this, it was all very clear to him - but the people who caused him mischief had a way of not staying around for very long. “You guessed because of, at the very least, their actions, child. Carlisle must have known what a risk attempting to live amongst humans would pose, and yet my dear friend allowed it still. Edward, you and your…siblings made little attempt at hiding your differences. Did you think isolation would not cause gossip? Did you think your behaviour above suspicion? You above reproach?” 

"I...," Edward said, his protests turning watery in his mouth. It was self-righteousness against self-righteousness, fire against fire. 

"Exactly," Aro said, while still playing the gracious host. "I'm afraid, Edward, young friend, the law has been broken. Perhaps not the letter, but the spirit. Secrecy, especially now, is tantamount to our continued existence. The weapons the humans possess... we are not infallible. Humanity is made of war, if they found us, they would uncover how to kill us far sooner than we could control the outbreak, especially with modern communication. We do not make laws for the sake of making laws, child, they are made because they are necessary, because the imposition of the law has more benefits than the freedom it takes away. Consider, a moment, a world devoid of this statute."

Edward cleared his throat, but the boy couldn't help but think. Humans and vampires waging war. Ashes and corpses and all kinds of fall-out. A fool might believe that humans could pose no threats but with his integration, he knew humanity was capable of all kinds of destruction. Nuclear weapons, nuclear war; would even the destruction of civilisation stop them? Of humanity itself? 

The dark haired faux-god nodded, "it is necessary." He turned to face his white haired counterpart - the fury of the triumvirate, the swift justice- and inclined his head. 

Caius shifted in his seat, a small, unneeded movement that worked to draw all eyes of the room to him. "Ultimately," he said, "you have broken the law. That is most apparent. Regardless of whether you told her specifically or through your actions you facilitated this awareness, you did not put our secrecy and continued survival of our entire species above all else. The fact that the human's awareness stemmed from indirect action as opposed to direct action is not a defence recognised here. It was your responsibility, it was your territory. The Volturi has fought long for vampires to remain a shadowed myth, if indirectly revealing yourself was excusable and forgivable without taking proper measures after the fact, then I cannot begin to imagine the consequences. We do not enforce many laws, young Cullen. I should have hoped that Carlisle, after the period he spent here as our guest, would have done more to impress the necessity onto you."

Edward gritted his jaw. "This isn't Carlisle's fault. I refuse to damn Bella, I will not take away her soul."

Marcus finally rose his eyes, red and filmed, his unending melancholy evident. "You," he said, voice raspy with disuse, "have a responsibility. I am aware of your bond, it is visible. It is strong. You make a mockery of it with your false morals. Your bond, still, is no excuse for criminality."

Aro and Caius both had turned to Marcus as he spoke, both slightly surprised he had deigned to say a word. Aro hummed, turning again to face the two Cullens and the human, his guard, his audience. "It seems we are all in unanimous agreement, then. A crime has been committed, and a crime will be punished here today."

"Please! No. No, please, please! Kill me, kill me. Not him."

Bella's defiance caused a stir of displeasure within the room, and Aro tutted. "This does not work in the way you think it does, sweet Isabella. Would you agree that if in a court of law all who stand accused are found guilty, then they all must be punished?"

"Not if they're innocent.. It wasn't his fault! This isn't even a court, it's three men dictating." Edward took Bella's hand in his, squeezing it lightly with the undertone of warning. He had hoped, perhaps, to use Carlisle's good favour to negotiate this, but her disrespect were decimating those chances. 

"Neither Edward nor, indeed, the entire Olympic coven are not innocent of the accusation, however," Aro said, his patience seeming never ending, even if it was dwindling within him. "A child used to an adversarial legal system would say as much, what use is there for arguments when all answers are revealed to me? As for your apparent lust for democracy - how would it work? How could you possibly stand before a jury of your peers without them all having to be executed also? How could voting in a leader work for those that do not change? It would be a pointless endeavour. This is the system that works within the confines of our nature. You do not need to preach the values of democracy to those who outdate it."

Caius rose to his feet too, a certain military rigour in his posture. Aro acted at eccentricity, but Caius would remain stoic. "You have been found guilty, there is no appellate. The verdict has been given, and now we will confer."

"Confer on what?" Edward scoffed out, it was clear that their decisions had been made already, "There is only one punishment."

"Confer as to what extent guilt is found on your coven. You did not act alone, insolent child. Any one of them could have dealt with ... this."

They returned to their thrones, signs of dominion, signs of wealth. Aro extended his hands outwards, offering his palms to the two who flanked him; they accepted with ease; flesh on flesh, palm on palm. No words were uttered, the only sign that they were not statues were occasional slight movements of Aro. The three had governed long, and this was an old habit. It was rendered unnecessary by Edward's gift, but a pretence was still a pretence. Their justice was still justice, and their guard needed to see that. There could be no exceptions, it was a delicate balance. 

They soon moved, hands withdrawn, contact severed, the lines cut. Judges, lawmakers, rulers, kings. This was a bastardisation of humanity. They had come to a verdict. It was time for the reckoning of the Cullens. 

“You can’t."

Edward had a century of life, but was still full to the brim with youth and idealism. It was beyond his comprehension; he lived with little consequences for his actions, the bronze haired golden child. Aro merely rose an eyebrow - he did not require their gifts, even Alice's was far too circumstantial to be of much use to him. He lifted a hand slightly, and the guard pounced. 

The three were left alone with the ashes; this is what they had built their dominion on. Aro opened his arms to his brothers, a wicked grin now the guard had left:

“We will call the rest to us. I do not tolerate threats.”


End file.
